


the air is thin around your beautiful head

by sandyk



Category: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Genre: Canon suicidal ideation, Gen, canon self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 23:03:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17109830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Deirdre Robespierre's maiden name was Jean-Lambert-Tallien. She had to explain to Reggie that her last name was the name of one of Robespierre's rivals.





	the air is thin around your beautiful head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mtgat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtgat/gifts).



> Title from the national's song Beautiful Head. Thanks people! not mine, no profit garnered!

Deirdre Robespierre's maiden name was Jean-Lambert-Tallien. She had to explain to Reggie that her last name was the name of one of Robespierre's rivals. He started to say it was ironic and she stopped him. It was an act of will to not shush him and explain what irony really was. But she was strong and her whole life was an act of will, it was like breathing at this point. She was so used to it, it made her want to scream in private.

She met Reggie at an embassy party in Croatia. Deirdre was there as the representative of the United States, Reggie was there as the representative of his father's company. She knew who he was immediately. Not only did she know everyone important but she used her fierce intellect to also keep track of all the wealthy men her age. Reggie was definitely on the acceptable list, green quadrant. Deirdre liked to make charts and lists even of the most meaningless trivial things in the world, like acceptable men to marry and elevate. 

She laughed at his jokes even though they weren't very good. She made sure to toss her hair. Her hair was a crowning glory along with her perfect teeth and slim figure. Reggie was at least attractive. She could imagine having sex with him. That was what put him in the green quadrant, actually near the top. 

Not that she cared that much about sex. Her mother told her sex was for mistresses. Deirdre knew that was an incredibly misogynist statement and even at age eight she believed strongly in the equality of the sexes and pleasure should be for everyone. She liked to read Kant and Hegel. And Simone De Beauvoir. And a little Judith Butler since she was only eight. She had put aside a lot of those ideals with her other childish things. Later, she told herself she had to. Still, she expected to get pleasure from sex just to spite her mother and her aunt. Reggie wasn't that disappointing.

She didn't have sex with him for two months both because she was still assigned to Croatia and because it was the way her people captured a man. The only time she'd had sex for pleasure was at Princeton and she'd sworn all those women to secrecy. As much she liked to orgasm and being slapped on the butt by a woman from Destin, Florida, she liked power more. 

She was meant to be with Reggie. She accepted the dull consumnation. She had been raised to marry well and then rule over the other wives like a ruthless despot with delusions of grandeur. Her mother, her stepmother, her third stepmother, her stepsisters, one of her father's girlfriends, a strange woman wearing handmade earrings apparently made from real dolphin teeth on the blimp to college - everyone said the same thing. Marry well. Reggie Robespierre seemed like a good choice, and Deirdre Jean-Lambert-Tallein only made good choices. Except when she didn't because she wanted to be alive and breathe and those were still choices.

There was so much worse out there. There was the scion of the Tylenol family she 'accidentally' told about the fake Saddam capture. Instead of endearing herself to him, he used it in his ridiculous writing career for network television. Instead of finding a husband, she had to be tormented by a cult comedy with insufferable fans. She was so tired of hearing about Bob Loblaw, et al. It made her want to set the entire world on fire and then throw herself into the conflagration while everything crumbled into simple dust. 

She'd spent years in college and the State department thinking her family had money, she didn't necessarily have to marry well. She could find someone who would genuinely want her to keep her job, not just for the diplomatic pouch and the chance to smuggle unmentionable drugs from Penis Island. Like that bastard Beakman. Another regrettable dating choice. At least he wasn't the Beakman's daddy's boy. She was almost sure she felt genuinely sorry for that one's new wife. 

She wished she had the strength to break free of how she was raised to find power the way she actually wanted to wield power. One night it struck her how easy it would be to take everything. She could just do it. But she put her hand out and realized she really needed a new manicure. 

She gave in. She diminished. She found herself going out of the way to meet Beakmans and Tylenols and Robespierres. She told herself it wasn't a failure. She was being true to her family. She was a Hamlet and she, too, would finally be killed by a man from Denmark. She hoped. 

Reggie was so close to his sister, Dantonette. That did mean he would never cheat, not physically. Probably. It was such an unfortunate name. Dantonette wasn't even named after the Danton from French history and blimp fame, she was named for Antonette, Reggie's father's favorite poodle. Not even a fancy breed like a kickabor. 

They had four children, starting with Owen, then another and then the twins. She didn't enjoy motherhood even if it did mean meeting the other mothers. They were all so weak. Children and mothers and nannies. She started her march to the top by slowly undermining that Tylenol wife until Mrs. Tylenol came to their exclusive nursery daycare in jeans she'd clearly bought at Old Navy. Deirdre had basked in the glory that night, setting all her Kant books on fire and warming her hands at the fire. She loved fire and blood. 

She might have snapped somewhere along the way. It happened. Her father once told her women with brains were more susceptible to crazy lady things. Deirdre had thought of him saying that the time she shot herself and the time she convinced a Beakman wife to take up stand up comedy. It was one of the cruelest things she'd done. 

She came home one day from shopping at the exclusive lingerie store La Perla was a knock off of and walked through the three display rooms of Egyptian incest pottery. She already couldn't care less about her bra. Her husband was on Facetime with his sister. Her children were screaming and shooting fake guns at themselves. She had to smile at that one. 

Deidre opened her books. She'd ordered them special delivered by the fastest blimp. She had a new plan. A fantastic plan. She was going to start a cult. Reggie could be Secretary of Transportation but Deirdre would be the one who had everything. She would be the next Founder, the next Gretchen what's her face. But she was Deirdre Robespierre and she would do this this cult thing right.


End file.
